


Forever

by Eavenne



Category: Hetalia: Axis Powers
Genre: Ancient China, Angst, Betrayal, Emotional Hurt, Gen, Historical Hetalia, Historical References, World War II
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-01-14
Updated: 2019-01-14
Packaged: 2019-10-10 05:21:22
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 957
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/17419847
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Eavenne/pseuds/Eavenne
Summary: Despite everything, China will live forever.





	Forever

Dark silk whispered against the cold stone floor.

“It is only right,” said the emperor, “that I, who built China, should be forever immortal with China.” He took a step forward – with each slight movement, the long dangling strings of beads suspended from his headpiece clattered quietly against each other. 

“Look at me.” His powerful voice filled the vast chamber, echoed for a moment, and dissolved into silence.

China raised his head.

Two cold, pitiless eyes bored into his own. “How is it that you can live forever?” asked the emperor. In one swift movement he was inches away, towering over China’s kneeling figure. “Speak. I command it of you.”

“I am the personification of this nation.” China blinked in the darkness of his lord’s looming shadow. “Its sorrows are mine to bear. Its joys are mine to celebrate. Its tears are mine to shed, and its wounds are mine to nurse.” A snatch of breeze slipped through the window – it tugged at China’s long sleeves and wrinkled the great gaping dragon embroidered on the emperor’s fine robes. “I will live as our kingdom lives, and die as our kingdom dies.” 

He bent his head. 

“And that is why I will live forever.”

\---

He shouldn’t have broken down over it.

There was no point in dwelling on pain, no point in gazing at the moon and dreaming of a face that he no longer recognised. China popped a sweet into his mouth, rolled it over, under his tongue – but the winter was too bitter and his eyes stung too painfully and the wound in his back ached too freshly to be forgotten. 

It was almost as though he could feel his heart breaking in two.

Perhaps he’d cried the day before, when his head was spinning with wine and his face was buried in his hands and he hadn’t known the words that were spilling from his mouth. “I hate Japan,” he’d tried to say – “I love Japan,” he’d said instead, “I love him, and I can’t forgive him, and I wish he hadn’t…”

Time didn’t heal all wounds. Blood would clot and skin would scab over but scars didn’t fade. And China would live forever.

Perhaps every inch of his body would bear a scar one day.

\---

There was nothing in this world more precious than life.

“Why are you fighting me?” he asked Japan as the ashes of the dead swirled in his lungs and he choked on dust. “Why are you doing this?” The stone pavement was slippery under his fingers – a red smear glittered vividly before China’s eyes, and he realised dimly that it was his own blood. “Why are you killing me?” He’d gone deaf, even to the shouts of the Japanese soldiers and the cries of his people. “Why, Japan? Why?”

China thought he saw Japan’s gloved hands shake.

“I have to do this.” 

There was nothing familiar about that lone, wretched voice.

“You don’t understand,” said Japan in a harsh, trembling whisper. He paused for a moment, his eyes wide, his shoulders heaving with quick, unsteady breaths. “I’m sorry – ”

“I hate you.”

And the world blurred before China’s eyes in a haze of tears.

\---

There were few good reasons to kill a person.

That was why China hated war. 

Perhaps Japan understood this as well. Perhaps they were all slaves to their rulers, slaves to their people, slaves to their own hands and feet. Sometimes China dreamed of war – of humiliating England, of dragging Taiwan back home – then he’d wake and run his fingers through his long hair and wonder at the horrible person he’d become. 

There was no point in clinging to old hopes, old dreams, and old grudges. In this world there was nothing left but to rush forward, to row against the current, to stretch one’s arms out further to grasp for something better, something almost within reach –

So he nodded at England, and spoke to Taiwan, and shook Japan’s hand.

For China could not hate forever.

\---

The terracotta army gazed unseeingly at its distant enemy.

Rows of tourists shifted behind China; they buzzed in conversation, oohed and aahed at the ancient relics before them, and walked off to their next destination. Something throbbed painfully in China’s chest. His legs were stone; they would not move. They could not move.

Perhaps he’d always been part of the terracotta army.

The air was old in the pits – the stench of it clung to China’s skin and sank into his pores. The clay warriors before him had been colourful once, painted brightly in reds and greens and blues. They’d been armed long ago, armed with bronze spears and lances, before flesh-and-blood men with actual lives to protect had stolen their weapons and taken them into battle.

But those men were dead; and the terracotta army lived on.

The world would end before they crumbled to dust guarding the First Emperor’s tomb. 

China could see it now, in the darkness behind his closed eyelids. He could look up and gaze at the painted stars glittering in their constellations; look down at the shimmering mercury, oozing slowly and achingly to form rivers and seas. In one corner of the grave he’d find the bones of the First Emperor’s childless concubines; in another, he’d see the skeletons of all the craftsmen who’d been trapped inside, the mausoleum’s secrets dying with the poor men’s last breaths.

It was beautiful and cruel and wonderful and despicable all at once. 

Ah, thought China, as he opened his eyes once more to look upon the immortal relics of the past. It was simply a representation of the world – the world in which he had lived for over four thousand long years.

And China would live forever.

**Author's Note:**

> Historical notes:
> 
> 1\. The Emperor – Qin Shi Huang / Shi Huang Ti (First Emperor of the Qin); the First Emperor of China (unified China). He unified China under his rule, standardising currency and everything. Known as an amazing emperor but a terrible person. In his later years, he became obsessed with becoming immortal, and tried to find the Elixir of Life. He took mercury pills because he thought it’d make him immortal, but it probably just started killing him via mercury poisoning instead.
> 
> 2\. China being upset over Japan (Part 1) – I didn’t have a specific historical event in mind here, so this could be either the First Sino-Japanese War (the one where he received the wound from Japan) or the Second one (right before and during WW2, I think). Both make sense.
> 
> 3\. China hating Japan – It’s a bit of a departure from canon, but IRL China does bear a grudge against Japan, so I’d think that especially during the Second Sino-Japanese War even canon China would have negative feelings regarding Japan (I swear I saw two different dramas playing about the 2nd Sino-Japanese War when I was in China, so I’m pretty sure that grudge is still alive and going).
> 
> 4\. China being upset over Japan (Part 2) – This one refers to the Second Sino-Japanese War, when Japan was invading Chinese towns.
> 
> 5\. Japan not wanting to do it but doing it anyway – Typically I write nation-tans as being forced to do things against their will by their bosses (this keeps them sympathetic and in-character because almost none of them are intentionally cruel people). In addition Japan was also facing a lack of natural resources which led it to try and occupy other countries like China. 
> 
> 6\. ‘Humiliating England’ – a reference to the Opium Wars which were humiliating for China
> 
> 7\. ‘Dragging Taiwan back home’ – Essentially, Taiwan separated from China. For many years China wanted to launch an invasion into Taiwan, and was stopped by American protection of Taiwan
> 
> 8\. Terracotta army – A collection of terracotta sculptures depicting the armies of Qin Shi Huang (he originally wanted to bury living people instead so this was a better alternative). Extremely famous. They’re guarding Qinshihuang’s tomb, which has never been excavated. They did actually use to have colours and weapons – the colours disappeared after they were exposed to air, and the weapons were stolen by Xiang Yu’s army not long after Qinshihuang died, I think. He also burned the pits where the warriors were buried.
> 
> 9\. Description of Qinshihuang’s tomb – Apparently legit, because they’ve actually found traces of mercury in the ground above it (one reason why they haven’t opened it – no one wants to breathe mercury). The Second Emperor (Qinshihuang’s son) forced Qinshihuang’s childless concubines to accompany Qinshihuang to the grave, killing many women. The people who made Qinshihuang’s tomb were trapped inside the tomb so that they wouldn’t be able to go back and rob it for the treasures inside. 
> 
> 10\. “Over four thousand years” – it’s been said that China is actually 5000 years old. And the Yellow River Valley civilisation there seems to date to 6000 years.


End file.
